


She has Mistaken the Beasts that Roam the Plains with Nature Itself. She has Conquered the Lion, but Her Cleverness Means Nothing to the Sea.

by hanktalkin



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fate & Destiny, Fire, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanktalkin/pseuds/hanktalkin
Summary: 5) We are going to live together when we can afford it and only use gold paint6) We have battled many foes and never fail to save each other
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Kudos: 14





	She has Mistaken the Beasts that Roam the Plains with Nature Itself. She has Conquered the Lion, but Her Cleverness Means Nothing to the Sea.

A timber fell, crashing from the landing onto the stairwell below, knocking aside a ceramic chicken that had stood above the door for as long as they had called this place home. Max made it past the foot of the stairs just as the timber connected with the floor, the burn of fire searing inches from her back. The ceramic chicken landed and shattered.

Red tore up the walls, tongues licking and shriveling the gold they had painted every room, eating away the illusion of stability that had housed them for far too short a time. What had been it this time? An electrical short circuit? A straightening iron left on? It didn’t matter, really, but it felt like it was her duty to at least ask as she stormed up the catching steps.

“Chloe!” she called. That repetitive, familiar name she felt she would never stop calling. “ _Chloe!_ ”

Another beam loosened, this time one right above her. She barely raised her hand in time to stop it, and the world froze—her burning home became a warped, grey-scale reflection of itself, and that strange distorted noise replaced the sound of hungry flames. Every color, every layer they had added with care, all scorched away until there was nothing but Max with her hand raised above her head. To think, years ago, when the disaster of Arcadia Bay was still fresh on her bloodied upper lip, there had been a Max who had sworn off using her powers forever. How naive she had been, how presumptuous to think she could return the gift that was her only edge against an unforgiving universe.

She rewound the burning ceiling back into the sky, leaving her at the top of the landing with the hall before her.

“Chloe,” she shouted, though it came out heavier as her lungs filled with smoke. She ran to their bedroom, shoving aside the door and yelped as it scorched her hands. “Shit!”

But no, not now, there could be pain later. She had to find Chloe before the whole house came down. She scanned the room quickly, trying to see anywhere Chloe could have gone-

“Max,” a faint voice called out, and Max wasted no time sprinting to the closet, dark smoke billowing from the hallway after her.

One of the shelves has caved in on itself. Chloe was beneath it, coughing, struggling to get CD and camera equipment off her. “Max,” she repeated, blue eyes locking on Max’s when she appeared in the door.

“I’m here,” Max said, wanting to put her hand on Chloe’s shoulder but instead wrapping both around the edge of the shelf. It was hot too, metal leaving grill marks in her palms that wouldn’t go away with a simple rewind, but she wasn’t going to back down. It wouldn’t take Chloe from her. It never would. “I’m going to lift on three, and you’re going to wiggle out, okay? Okay, one, two…”

Max lifted and Chloe shoved, pushing against the wall as she scuttled from beneath the bent frame. It clattered back into place, and Max nearly went with it, only held herself with the closet door as smoke invaded her lungs.

“Max, dammit…” Chloe said, struggling to stand even as she reached for her.

It was clear she couldn’t. Her shirt was seared off around the stomach and she bent double as she was wracked by another round of coughs. Max leaned over, helping her to her feet, and turned them both to the hall.

“Shit,” Chloe muttered. The hall was now dull and orange, glowing with the almost cheerful radiance of a setting sun. The golden brilliance of something routine and inevitable.

“The window,” Max directed, pointing them to the outer wall.

There was a moment, a shuffle where Chloe tried to make her go first, but Max told her _no_ and nearly pushed her out. The trellis (because of course there was the trellis. Max had wanted something cute and Chloe had teased her about dashingly ascending to her window at night so on the trellis had went) groaned as Max made her way down, but it at least had the decency to wait until she was three-quarters of the way before giving out entirely. She landed partially in Chloe’s arms.

They still weren’t safe though. So they dragged each other, looking behind them as their home, their new life, went up in smoke.

“It won’t have you Chloe,” Max mumbled as they stumbled across dew covered grass. “It won’t have you. I won’t let it.”

She wouldn’t, not as long as she lived. The Universe had chased Chloe for years, hungering for what had been denied to it, consuming all in its way regardless of what it took. Arcadia Bay had been the greatest loss of life Max had traded, but it hadn’t been the last. She knew, distantly, that she shouldn’t feel guilty for the people who’d died so Chloe could live: she hadn’t killed them. It was Fate, it was the Universe who was to blame for the gas explosion in their last apartment, for all those people in that elevator.

But that never kept the tears back for long. When a disaster hits, when a storm tears apart a town at its very foundations, people don’t blame the wind or ocean currents. They blame the builders who made inadequate storm walls, they blame the politicians who had no plan. People need a face for their guilt, need a human to play the villain because stories are the only way our grief seems bearable.

It was just, in all that, they forgot to blame the woman who wore deserved the mantel most.

But what else was she going to do? She had made her choice. And she kept making her choice, every time she saved Chloe, she was choosing her over the world all over again. Because the Universe wanted Max to play this game. It never took her in a way unpreventable: no cancer, no heart disease, no disaster that Max couldn’t reach in time. It was punishment. And it would keep going, for as long as Max chose.

“I won’t let it,” Max promised as she lay with Chloe in the damp grass, breathing heavily as sirens sounded in the distance. She doubted Chloe could ever really understand what she meant.


End file.
